The Motto Had This To Convey

The Motto Had This To Convey

The motto had this to convey,

As wrought with superb irony

For all who entered in its way:

“Labor Only Makes Us Free”;

Albeit, inside Auschwitz none

Was free to go except to stoke

The ovens as its camp was run

For inmates to go up in smoke.

“Selections” from the very start

Began like your assembly line—

To set “for life and death” apart

To “showers”—only by design;

So everything was done by ruse,

For “showers were to disinfect”

(Although they had another use)

So nobody would death expect.

As it should be all by surprise,

So everything was sorted out

“In order to keep order”—lies

Had to be what it was about;

Of clothing no one needed wear,

The gas chambers lay up ahead

That victims should go unaware

Of being sheep to slaughter led.

As “showers” into which they went

Are bolted, the insecticide

Is pumped in by the nozzle’s vent

Asphyxiating those inside;

They’d call it “euthanasia” though

By reasoning: it’s kindness to

Murder them rather than by slow

Starvation that would also do;

For, those they kept alive to slave

Inside the factories would die

To live, but longing, for the grave

That killed them gradually by;

For none of it had been by chance

But was determined by one aim,

And, by lockstep, went in advance

Done—only in Germany’s name, 

Since Hitler had declared his goal

In his book many years before:

“He’d save the pure Germanic soul

By waging on the Jews his war.”